Bleach

*NO SPOILERS*

Bleach had great potential, but became annoying with poor character development and random powers.

Bleach has one of my favorite concepts ever. The Soul Society is awesome and the Gotei 13 are probably the best part of the show. They are squads composed of a multitude of Shinigami(Soul Reapers) and the show focuses more on the Captains and Lieutenants of those squads that are the most interesting characters in the show. Although, their could have been less squads(like 6) with less members in them(like 5) to have a more focused cast of characters that get more development. Hollows are also very interesting, they are souls ... that have either decide to let themselves be taken by evil or have been capture by other hollows. The basic concept is that the Soul Society dispatches Soul Reapers to purify the souls of hollows to let them live in the Seretei(basically heaven) unless they were evil while human( then they go to hell). The Soul Reapers use their swords called Zampakuto, that have 2 transformations to purify hollows.

The story of Bleach is ok, it is basically a regular shounen protagonist (Serious while fighting and Over powered) vs a traitorous, power hungry, intellectual villain.

Bleach biggest problems are its disrespect of its own power level system, its useless side characters, its horrible explanations for certain powers and its fillers..

Bleach doesn't make sense when it comes to power levels, a character can be defeated by an opponent, and then can defeat someone that utterly destroyed that opponent without training or power ups. I don't know how to describe it without spoilers but the power level system is non existent and it is really aggravating to not see that system in place. Ichigo, the main character, will discover some new ability to beat his opponent that is portrayed as being way more powerful than Ichigo, this will happen multiple times. Ichigo is easily defeated by the main antagonist(villain), that same villain levels up 5 times and is defeated by Ichigo who trained for 3 months. What? at least don't make the villain level up 5 times so it makes more sense.

The side characters in bleach are useless. The Captains and Lieutenants aren't, but Ichigo's friends are. First off, Orehime Inoue, F**K is this character annoying. Shes is the typical damsel in distress, she is hot, she tries to be extra cute and she has stupid powers that have no explanation(Maybe Fullbringer). Orehime's only use is healing Ichigo so he can get back into a fight. Chad has *MINOR SPOILER* Fullbringer powers, these are probably the stupidest powers in the Bleach universe. Fullbringer is the abillity to control the souls found inside objects. WTF!! an object has a soul? I guess it does in the Bleach universe. Uryu Ishida is probably the on except-able friend Ichigo has. Uryu is a Quicy, they are similar to soul reapers, but instead of using a sword they use a bow and arrow. They also kill hollows instead of purifying them. The problem with all three of these characters is they become to weak to participate in battles except Uryu who can still provide support in battle.

Bleach is almost 50% filler. These can be skipped if you binge watch Bleach but on a week to week basis it can be really annoying to have to watch filler almost every other arc.

Although Bleach has a huge list of problems I was still hooked until the last cannon arc because the concept of Bleach was so interesting. The Soul Society and the captains are the main reason I continued to watch the show. The most annoying part of Bleach for me was its lack of explanation and logic for powers, Ichigo's friends that shouldn't have existed, especially Orehime and the fact that the main characters can just come full circle and defeat a character that should be way above them in terms of power.

Story:
Bleach is a mixed bag as far as story goes. The first arc (ep1-63), which covers the soul society, is interesting and engaging. It contains both action and a good plot. However, after episode 63 things go downhill. A lot. The Bount arc which follows it isn't even in the manga and has no relevance to the overall story, as well as being entirely uninteresting. It picks up a bit when the story shifts back to the plotline of the manga, but there isn't much of a plot to follow at that point. Basically, the main characters fight the bad guys from there on out ... with little else of interest to be found. If the action was great, it might make up for this, but it isn't. While it isn't terrible, it is never enough to carry the anime by itself. In addition, there are frequent fillers, which I would recommend ignoring entirely if you decide to watch this.
Aside from the generally uneventful plot, Bleach suffers from an unwillingness to kill off anyone. Despite having tons of shinigami, Bleach never kills off a single one. The only characters who ever die are the bad guys, and very few of them ever perish either.
If I were rating only the first arc, I would give this a 7 or an 8, but the decay which has happened since then forces me to drop it significantly to a 5.

Art:
Character design is excellent, overall very solid animation. It does occasionally have issues though.

Sound:
Sound is generally good, music appropriate to the mood. No complaints here.

Character:
This is where Bleach should shine, but doesn't. As said before, character design is great. However, there are so many characters that none of them get any sort of development. With the sheer volume of characters in the show, even main characters are often forgotten for several episodes. Most of the characters seem like they would be interesting if developed, but they simply aren't.

Overall:
I would recommend watching the first 63 episodes and dropping it there. Aside from the Turn Back the Pendulum story (206-212) there is essentially nothing of value plotwise after that point.
If you're only in it for the action, I suppose Bleach is a decent show. But even in that case, you could do much better.

Bleach is a good choice for you if you're looking to observe the process of the mainstream anime of the 2000's and what they tried to pull off to sell and stay relevant. Outside of the popularity that it got, I see Bleach as a very stale and mediocre anime, which I'll go and detail in the review later, but I'd like to start with the cause and then the effects.

You see, Bleach is a product of a time when a shounen reaches popularity to an extent that it can be milked, hinduism will then sue the studios and authors in question for treating their ... cattle with such disrespect, because those innocent cows have like four japanese businessmen attached to all ends of the udder, with them chugging the milk hard. The strategy was to sell it like it's crack-cocaine, because people will love it and people will buy it because it is something that fits their business strategy.

But how did the studios get the warm & sweet cow milk? Here, I'll guide you through it if you wanna do the same. First of all, the source material needs to have garnered some popularity from the target audience desired. Then, as your next step you make sure that it is gonna be a battle shounen and that it does feature some form of fanservice. Third, you make sure to influence the source material in a way that the show will keep its cast mostly out of mortal danger and will turn any of the cool villains into protagonists. And also make sure that nobody dies so you can milk the character popularity too. Fourth make sure you never take a break from airtime ever and air constantly, even if there is no content to adapt. Create filler arcs so the author has time to write content for the anime to adapt. They don't have to be memorable or interesting, you already hooked in the audience. They'll watch anything, so they don't deserve any quality. And then you are set for as long as the author complies. Some free advice on how to keep animating content and delay running out of source material: Make sure to rehash as much material as possible, showing as many flashbacks as possible whenever the character reminisce something important or just make a bullshit reason like trying to remind the audience what the characters are fighting for. It will help you plenty. Don't forget you think your audience is just filled with complete idiots. Very important.

What shows like Bleach aspired to be was the next Dragon Ball, because that for most was like crack-cocaine. Since the DB franchise did it first, we just have to do it and make sure we capitalize on all the things it did and make our shows as close in execution as possible, and not risk anything because it won't sell. This is kinda why shows like Bleach disgust me. They just don't aspire in any way to be artistically distinguishable and just try to be the same thing as their spiritual predecessors. They treat their audience like garbage and the only reason I came come up with for such a thing is the reward, which is the money. If this business scheme worked, why not use it? Each of these goliath shounen shows have some varying degree in certain aspects of sins in these departments, but they're all the same when boiled down. Another attempt at getting another Dragon Ball on the market. If you can't respect that, you can just stop reading the review, you read enough. If the show will have potential early, it will dissapoint you because it went nowhere with it. If it won't, you'll be dissapointed again because you had nothing to show for at all after spending some time through it. But if you still hold some interest for Bleach, keep reading, because now I'll get into the actual show itself.

But note that I'll spoil some things in the story for like the first 15 episodes of the show. The show has 366 episodes so it kinda is hard to not give you any specifics on the story's direction without giving you any specifics. I strongly advice reading despite that, I did my best to avoid it being plot specific and in a series like Bleach, having a little knowledge of what you'll watch, from where I'm standing, is strongly adviced.

The story of Bleach early seems to be about a high school student who gets super powers and has to fight and protect people from spirits that failed to pass away to the other world. And for the most part, he spends his time going through high school featuring some slapstick humor along the way and then, in his responsabilities as a shinigami, he has to fight gigantic monstrous beings with a big fucking sword. Sounds like nothing. As a matter of fact, for the most part, Bleach is mostly generic in terms of its action and story, but it does have a high point.

In its introduction arc the series does build itself up. First it does build up the main character, and his overall attitude towards saving people. He isn't unwilling to save people that he sees that do need help, but he isn't exactly accepting of the idea that he would go around and make a day out of it. The way he described it at the time that "Of course I'm gonna help someone if I see they need it. But I don't want to seek doing it." And for a while the series tries to convince him to get to do what he can to take care of everyone and Ichigo constantly does it reluctantly.

But that plays into a meaningful decision.

Another thing that was constantly built up in the series was the Spirit Society, a society governed by people with the same powers as Ichigo, responsible for the protection of spirits and fighting against corrupt ones. The character responsible for Ichigo having to fight these spirits leaves in order to protect him and not make him also suffer consequences as a result of her actions. He is unsatisfied with her decision and runs off to find her. And so he does, just to find another two people, of whom one proceeds to destroy him in battle, with him being a subordinate of the other. And then a meaningful thing happens. After this sore defeat, Ichigo decides to try and save her. To infiltrate Soul Society. After losing his powers. And after being overpowered. He made a decision about who he wants to protect and why, and goes in to save her despite all odds, in a world filled with an uncountable number of people who might be potentially much more powerful than him, willing to simply just go alone. It feels like an adventure with odds stacked against him with who knows what might come against him. The show is respectable at that point and the decision makes sense and feels meaningful.

The Soul Society Arc is pretty much where the non-fanatics of Bleach agree that the show was at its strongest. And I'm one of those people. Now don't worry, I'll stop with the spoilery stuff now, so you won't have to worry about what you'll read on ahead. All I will say that in the Soul Society arc, our characters will explore uncharted territory and have fights of their own. Most of the fights will focus on presenting the personality and motivations of the characters and show off the world. It's the most well executed arc out of the entirety of Bleach, because there's a sense of urgency because you don't know how events will play out and it does pretty much feel like a rescue mission.

But everything falls apart after this arc. Fillers with irrelevant events will start pilling up, which even the most thirsty of fans tend to skip. The fights just become a mess where the character who's strongest wins until the other character reveals a "final form". That will be the basic structure of all the fights for the series' remaining airtime and actual abilities and what they do won't matter, because ultimately, the strongest in raw power will win. All of the action of the series is stale and the character motivations just don't matter. Fuck, each character has different abilities and that plays so little into how fights go around, that they feel almost incompetently choreographed. They just seem to bank on pure hype alone.

While Ichigo has an interesting execution at the start, he's a very standard shounen protagonist who fights to protect his friends from harm, he's hot headed, has spikey hair and is fucking terrified of those things women have on their chest or between their legs. He is an archetype that even at the time was treading water. All the other character don't matter since the series removes all the tension and urgency by making everyone make peace amongst themselves and just introduce some new enemies so a constant clash of I'M STRONGER THAN YOU DIE will come. The overarching villain of the series is some dude thirsty for power for the sake of power. Otherwise known as a cartoon villain. Everything in Bleach is as generic as possible.

Bleach aired for 8 years. In these 8 years, the artstyle suffered some changes. From first having that choppy VHS aimed type animation with some degree of bad color balance it eventually ends up being one of those series that didn't figure out how to draw the outline of the characters without making them oversharpened, so everything is constantly looking blurry. Also the color balance often feels too strong when dark colors aren't involved. In the first few years it was introduced, it had some pretty interesting tracks that in all honesty, I can enjoy listening to these days. Then eventually transitioned to airing some harmonical/classical tracks in its wake. They're not bad, but the first aired tracks for the series have a very distinct feeling.

So if you decide to watch Bleach do it if one of the following descriptions apply to you. You're just looking for a long running action series and don't really care about the structure of the fighting and think that the raw power type drawn fights will entertain you. Or you're looking to look into the way the business strategy of selling off the next Dragon Ball failed and Bleach is a particularly strong choice because it's already kinda faded out of relevance. It doesn't really have really strong action and early it mostly was used to develop characters. Then it was just colored blasts or final forms. Or both. The humor is slapstick and well... you can find that type of humor pretty much anywhere. No need to find it in Bleach. And Bleach just is a very generic show that aired for a really long time. Ultimately, Bleach was passed off as milk. But most people know better than to drink Bleach.

One of the most mediocre animes I've watched. Episode 311 was my limit. I have no clue why I'm still watching this anime other than the fact that I can procrastinate a good 22mins every week, this week was, however, exceptionally frustrating.

The storyline is decent, but constantly revolves around the I'm-going-to-whack-you-until-you-die-so-that-I-can-protect-some-people-that-arent-even-going-to-be-hurt-by-you, oh I forgot that they spend no time trying to solve any conflicts peacefully, they just get straight into drawing their sword, and dueling it out with as LITTLE effort as possible?

Why? Because, they will put in a little more effort the next week, and just a little more effort the week after, before ... deciding that I'm-going-to-take-you-down-now-with-my-super-ultimate... which will take another week before the fight is resolved.

What an utter waste of time.

Too predictable, and a total lie if anyone tells you there is characterization. The last 50 episodes has either been filler, or raw fighting. Ichigo continues to fight everything he sees and threaten everyone with his big sword without ever giving a care about resolving conflicts out of combat, same goes for almost every creature in the show.

Initially the show was definitely enjoyable, what with the interesting idea of shinigami and their shikai+bankai... 311 episodes in, I'm sure few of us, other than the 12 year old kids will continue to enjoy this constant plot-less circle around karakura town.

Where will the show go from here on? Well, I hope it ends, because surely there is NOTHING left to talk about? But golly me, I'm sure everyone will resurrect and powerup, just like they have been doing the past 311 episodes and it will not be a surprise if there is a ultimate-kai along the way which will then be countered by a super-ultimate-kai.

What a waste of time, but I'll keep watching it, until it drops below the 5 I'm rating it now. Thank god shitty Naruto actually turned out better than I thought, as stubborn as Ichigo, but at least hes much more mature and likable than that violent criminal that is Ichigo.

Story:

Bleach is a shounen anime and with that, people generally expect a decent story with interesting fights, unfortunetly, you don't get that with Bleach. The plot, or lack of one generally stays with the same formula throughout every arc. Ichigo gets a power-up, someone gets kidnapped, Ichigo gets depressed, Ichigo saves them, rinse and repeat. If that weren't bad enough, only bad guys die, while that may not be a problem for some people, the fact that a good guy cannot die really limits the amount of suspense a fight can have. It works for One Piece only because One Piece has a good ... story and characters that are developed well enough to carry the story. Bleach just doesn't have that. But some positives are that the fights are pretty decent, though there are a bit too many at times.

Art:

Studio Pierrot does the art and animation. Just like with Naruto, some episodes are hit or miss in terms of animation, though, they seem to do a better job with Bleach.

Sound:

The music is pretty good and fits the atmosphere of the anime. I also feel the music has gotten better through the series as it has gone along.

Character:

This is the area where Bleach could most improve. Kubo Tite did an amazing job with character designs and EVERY character looks simply awesome, but under their flashy exterior, is nothing. These characters, aside from Ichigo, Renji, and Rukia, are severly underdeveloped. They feel shallow and hollow. They are so forgettable, that I don't even know everyone's name, and I'm at episode 150.

Enjoyment:

I think you get a fair amount of enjoyment out of Bleach. It's far from a masterpiece, but it can be enjoyed, as long as you take it for what it is and accept the limitations placed on it by its creator.

Overall:

If you're a fan of shounen anime, watch Yu Yu Hakusho, Hunter x Hunter, Rurouni Kenshin, and One Piece instead, though if you've already seen those, then Bleach would be a last alternative.

I remember when I first got into Bleach. Young, stupid, inexperienced with anime. For quite a while I thought I was enjoying a nice school life supernatural with a cute shinigami girl living in the main character's closet. It had so much potential to become something that had some plot, deepened characters and some actual drama in the mix. Then came the soul society arc and for a while I accepted it as a part of the series.

Then it mutated into a cash cow. Throwing away all traces of deep plot and developed characters. completely ignoring it's secondary characters and focusing on many others, one ... by one, with slow paced fights that take episodes to complete.

after having watched +300 there hasn't been a moment where I heatedly laugh or emotionally tear up. There is absolutely nothing presented on the emotional level. It's cheap themes and an overload of characters, keeping it's fat behind on airing slots week after week making sure it milks itself for everything it's worth.

Then to explain the entire plot and the 'why' of the story the plot has the nerve to blame everything on Aizen. (not a spoiler, it's freaking obvious)

Although I want to cry when a character dies, or want to take a small break from this pointless so called 'action' between shallow characters with no development, or deep rivalry, to have some true humor or romance in between. There are just simply too many characters and just too little time and effort into truly turning them into real important figures and entities in the anime.

I'll give you a million dollars if you can name every attack, move, sword name, and character name in the anime. Seriously who gives a f*ck?

This is the equivalent of a bottle formula for the young anime viewer and is a decent start point for anime. It serves as the bottom step to take you to the next and the next as you ascend to the greatness of anime such as, Evangellion, Code Geass, CLANNAD, or something like that.

I've seen single OVAs do more than the total 300+ episodes that Bleach has done. Honestly, reading the manga is barely enough to keep my attention span. why stick around for the extended version littered with fillers and band promotional EDs and OPs?

It's just a money maker for the studios.I hope Yuki Matsuoka is getting her fair share of fame and salary out of this. Seiyuus and animators gotta eat too.That's the only thing I have to thank for the people who still watch this anime...

Bleach is an anime that revolves around the japanese concept of having an orange haired person as the main character. While Kurosaki Ichigo's hair is indeed the main part of the plot , there is also a sub plot. Ichigo can see ghosts while not being drunk , one day his sisters are being attacked by a Hollow (an ancient japanese clown) - here we meet a new character , Rukia , whom while starting off as a decent character becomes as worthless as Sakura from Naruto . Rukia's hair is black , thus making her a side character -she tells Ichigo she is ... a shinigami which implies wearing black puffy pyjamas while fighting off clowns (Hollows). Because of how worthless she is, she gets beaten up by the hollow , so Ichigo - taking advantage of the situation - steals her powers to become the main character and gain power the like of which , the world have never seen the like of which. So then he saves his insignificant sister , whose names are not important enough to be stated.
For letting Ichigo steal her powers , Rukia is pursued by her loving brother , Byakuya - chan , who wants to kill her . Here is a summary of the most important characters :

Ishida - Wears glasses while not looking like a nerd which enables him to kill hollows using magical powers and good looks. His grandfather's father past is revealed in flashbacks , but since no one watches those , we can assume he is a toilet cleaner.

Renji - Has some strange ass tatoos on his face , and is stupider than the averages british which puts him slighty higher than animals. Like all characters that love Rukia he wants to capture her so she can be killed. His sword's spirit looks like a baboon with a snake for a tail , this shows how much shit a japanese guy can come up with.

Ichigo's friend #1 and #2 - They are not relevant in any way but knowing the author we can suppose they could be the actual evil masterminds.

Chad - A mexican bulldozer that reassembles a human being , he has a mexican hair and mexican accent but he is not mexican. He is dumb but kind , which is usually the worst combination for an anime character. His grandfather (everyone appears to have one of those) is dead , he calls him 'abuelo' which I assume means 'asshole' in mexican.

Orihime Inoue - Even though her hair is worthy of a main character , she is regrettably a female which means she is not macho enough to be the main character. She therefore assumes the role of support character , all she does is run around , get kidnapped , shout other's people's names (Kurosaki-kun! Kurosaki-kun! Kurosaki-kun! ), have lame monologues and provide fanservice.

Aizen - He is the Deus Ex Makina of Bleach , he is like Stephen Hawkings meets Jesus Chritst meets Gandalf. He is the most overpowered character ever invented , not even Voldermort would challenge him to a duel. Also his ego is about 2 times the size of the bleach universe. In terms that can be understood by the average anime fans , he is the male version of Haruhi Suzumiya except he doesn't have ponytails (in public) and his SOS squad (or as he calls it - Espada) is made up of hipsters.

Tite Kubo , the manga-ka of Bleach , loves doing 3 things:
1.Overpower Aizen
2,Make dissapointing characters
3.Extend flash backs to a ridiculous extent

The fight sequences consists of unnecessary movements and awkward punchlines. Here is the formula to calculate the chances of winning in bleach:

how loud they scream (db) * how many flashbacks they had + how close they are to the main character
(note : if formula applied to Aizen divide by 0)

Also if badass music is playing around , you can pretty much assume something is going to happen , so get your popcorn ready for the bitch slapping - unless the enemy is Aizen , in which case not even badass music iwill help. The music itself consists of the vast playlist which sounds very much like the youtube sensation : Keyboard Cat.

Every single male character in bleach is gay , with the exception of Kon - the teddy bear. This means that love plots are nonexistent thus the lack of love triangles (and love parallelograms).

Another concept used in bleach is F.L.A.B.F. , which stand for Fucking Long And Boring Fillers. By using the ancient japanese technique of having a 10 years old write the plot , the Bleach fillers make as much sense as any given youtube comment. The fillers feature an intricate story consisting of shouting , running and bitching outloud , new characters are introduced to see whether a character more annoying than Inoue can be created - of course such abomination wasn't conceived yet. Many conspiracy theories have arised with regard to the making of those fillers , some claiming that the bleach studios are just trying to find out how much shit fans are willing to go through just to see Aizen getting beaten up (or go to the skies with his father , Jesus , and his granpa - Haruhi Suzumiya).

Overall the cake is delicious , but would you really eat it if the pancakes were kidnapped? It's like the story of the lonely napkin who forgot to go to work and lost his passport in a volcano after being chased by a flying rabid weasel across the globe , while being followed by CIA for stealing a coin from the desk of the person who's brother is egyptian - the same place where the pharaohs ate stuff which reassembled delicious sterilized carbon otakoxide which reacts with bleachium hydromoe.

I hope you enjoyed my analysis of this intricate bullshit , and will help me in my quest to work out how drunk I am right now.

Bleach really has a lot of ups and downs. While some parts of the anime are very catchy and enjoyable, others are incredible boring and make it hard to go on watching it.
The very same goes to the plot of Bleach: There are some very interesting storyparts, as well as many plotholes and odds in the story (For example take a look at Soul Society - I'll never get why people grow up and die in a place they came to after they died on earth ...).
The humour used in Bleach also has his ups and downs. Even though many jokes might not even ... scratch your lips, others will make you laugh hard enough to almost fall off your chair.
The show always reaches his top when Ichigo is about to fight seriously, since those fight scenes are usually pretty cool, even though they are mostly kinda overdone.

Bleach in general is a pretty enjoyable anime, especially the first few episodes are very entertaining and humorous. It's a shame it has some very boring story parts, many plotholes, many filler episodes and does not have much development in character relationships ... :(

Every couple of months my rating for this anime drops. A couple of years ago I thought this anime was awesome but now its just empty space. This anime is just a time waster. It has taken 310 episodes to complete the story (if it really is completed). That is simply way too long. This entire series is just a giant tease. The battles that are boring and involve no one particularly interesting last 5 episodes. And the really epic battles that the entire series builds up to last 1. Not to mention the ridiculous amount of filler.

Also the story makes no sense whatsoever. ... There are so many illogical characters (hinamori!) and lose ends that I just threw my hands up and gave up. My advice is: 1. If you haven't already started watching this anime, wait 4-50 years for it to end so you can skip all of the filler episodes or just watch recap episodes. 2. If you already are watching this anime, follow step one. You have probably already wasted several days of your life watching bleach. Don't waste anymore.

If you are about to watch bleach and are about to go watch the first few episodes, then your in for a treat.

The first/introductory arc of bleach is an brilliant show of anime, truley somthing worth watching. But the problem in my eyes is that it goes very much down hill from there. Some fans (and myself) do believe it will pick up a little from time to time but ultimatly it is not going to wow you with complex or ingaging plot.

As with alot of popular anime bleach very quickly gets lost in an unnessicary and almost unwatchably long train of ... fillers, drawn out fights and repetition on powers and jokes. Unless your new to anime or are caught in its fandom frenzy, then you will probably not beable to sit through the 100's of episodes to come.

Story -6- as explained above it takes along time for anything to happen after the first arc. It does have a twists but nothing that will not become blatantly obvious. The fight scenes are not too bad, but most characters only posses about 2 or 3 moves, so it can get boring after their powers have been introduced. The plot lines do run for a while into the story but are usually summed up before starting a new set of events. There are alot of filler arcs that will literally come at any time they see fit, and will plague you with non-cannon storys, they are sometimes funny but generally are just in the way.

Art -7- as such a long anime, the style and animation changes during the corse of the show. It is good in parts but is not consistent and is sometimes misleading to the actual abilities of a character.

Sound -9- bleach has alot of different tracks related to it, both for the credits and show. When i look back on it, bleach fans are really spoilt for choice in this area.

Characters -7- the characters are introduced well in bleach, and get some development, but not as much as you would expect in such a long series. Expect to be juggling names by the end though as it has alot of main and supporting characters (but hey at least their names are easy to remeber). Unfortuantly there will often be parts of this anime that will make you question where all the characters have gone though, as there are so many.

Enjoyment -7- this is possibly the most subjective and overlapping category, but generally i would say that bleach does have a certian charm the will have you wanting more (even if you dont know why). I highly enjoyed the first arc and liked the manga that (imo) will make up for some of the problems of popular anime. But as ive said - you wont enjoy this unless you can strap yourself in for a long anime.

Overall -6- im going to be fair, its good in places but has alot of faults. If i where you i would have a think about watching this series, and dont just dive in without knowing that you will be watching for a long time.

I know People are not going to like this, but I do not like this series and I cannot rank this in any top 100 animes.

Story

Confusing and unexciting. I have a rule when I watch new anime, Watch the first 5-10 episodes, then make judgment, I watched 43 and I could not stand the story. It seemed as if the author didn't put much thought until it became popular. It didn't have much of a flow to me neither. It seemed as if they forced out things, like Naruto does, only this seemed more forced. Like when Ichigo fought that thing that had the face ... of his mother. It seemed very cliche.

Art

The animation is okay, but the characters, clothing and amongst other things doesn't strike me as anything original. Black robes, big boobs... The only thing I really liked was Chad and Rukia. The two appealing drawings in this anime.

Sound

Actually, the sound is good and the music is Appealing. The only thing I really liked from Bleach

Characters

Now some of the characters bother me. As I said, the only two original designs are Rukia and Chad. Both look great but the others are just... not too great. The characters in general, in terms of the series, are decent. I do like Ichigo, but he has moments when he seems very out of character. A lot of moments. It seems all the characters change a lot and little things like that strike me. x_x

Overall, Didn't like it, and never going to finish this. I wish it was a little more thought out. I can't stand it. It is like one piece, it seems it will never end. It will eventually, but it should soon.

Story-The first two and a half seasons were really entertaining, although painfully unoriginal. I hate to downrank the show so much as it was one of the main things that got me back into watching anime, but the storyline past ep 62ish is a complete and utter disaster. I'm not even sure how I stomached the full year of Bounto filler, and have recently dropped the series as there is yet again an entire arc of total nonsense that has nothing to do with the plot whatsoever. Also the main story itself is plagued with repetition, the antagonists are nearly identical in ... personality (grimmjow=kenpachi, ulquiorra=byakuya) as the soul society arc and the situations are all exactly the same. My suggestion, watch this show to episode 65 and stop, you aren't missing anything past that. I would give the show 8/10 if it was only 65 episodes long.

Art-Once again, started off excellent. I thought the first couple seasons had great animation, and the combat scenes were pretty well done. This area sadly however, seems to deteriorate along with the storyline, not quite as badly but compare the fights in seasons 1-3 to the ones after and the show just isn't showing us anything new.

Sound-The music is ok, and it fits well. Repetitive sure, but it's a shounen with 180+ episodes how could the music not be repetitive. The sound quality overall isn't bad, my only complaint would be the op/end themes especially in season 3 and up.

Character-The characters, like the story aren't very fresh, but they're well developed and pretty likable. The main downfall in my opinion is the overdevelopment of the enormous cast of worthless sidecharacters. It gets really bogged down with this at times, there is even an entire season dedicated to doing this (5th season).

Enjoyment-First 3 seasons 9/10, rest 1/10. Starts out very addictive and fun to watch but trails on to "why am I watching this."

Bleach used to be my favorite show, the SS arc was very interesting despite being dragged and I had enjoyed the begining of Arancar arc but... this show has no excitement for me now.

The only pluses left are the character designs, I still admire Kubo for his drawing skills and design but as an author he fails.

There is no real story anymore. We are stuck with constant fightings with no real progrss. Even those fights are boring for one simple reason - you know how it will end:
a) Good guy wins
b) Good guy gets help and wins

In both scenarios bad guy loses and dies.
The whole ... arrancar arc happend to be a waste of time. They made no change to the story. All good guys are still alive and all their lost limbs will be restored by Orihime.

Kubo said that he plans to do more arcs so al those shikais/bankai will appear again. He basicly wasted 2-3 years on nothing.

Espadas had received so much heap in the beginig, captains almost pissed themselves yet all espadas were defeated easily even by those who are not that powerful. It was also said that Vasto Lordes are at he same level as captains if not stronger and that 10 of them could destroy SS. And later Kubo states in interview that part of espadas were Vasto Lorde... who had lost quiet easily... just WTF?! Where did all the promised power go?! Shouldn't they be even MORE dangerouse after being hollowied by Hougyoko?

How the hell that one sided battle can be called a war?
All bad guys are dead while all goodies are alive... jsut what kind of fairy tale is that?!
Where is the drama, tension, deaths? How can you be excited about a fight when you know how it will end?

Also another huge minus is Ichigo. I will be quiet about SS arc where this loser was able to beat captains with hundreds years of experiance only after several week training. They should have been able to kill him with closed eyes! Having talent wouldn't save your ass gaianst masters in such short time.

But ok, I can live with that...
Better tell me what the hell is with all those power ups?! He always gets beaten down or killed but then once Orihime opens her mouth, he smashes bad guy in seconds, just WTF?! How is that possible?! He even comes back to life after being killed! Then he gets into some convenient place where he can train and owns bad guys ass.

Also why all bad guys had turned into idiots? Why good guys who are served in half and have crushed organs are alive, but bad guys with some cuts are dead?

THIS SUCKS!

I give this show 5 only from respect of the old times and the characters which I still like. If not those things, it would be 1!

P.S. Killing bad guy who has become good doesn't mean that you have killed a goodie.

This anime starts out good, and then sucks a lot later on.

Towards the end of the Soul Society arc, everything goes downhill. The story starts to get repetitive and overrun with filler, and character development progressively gets more stale.

The artwork and sound effects are of great quality however, and the story isn't too terrible before the Soul Society arc ends. As the anime is right now however, fight scenes and other forms of story progression all take too long, often spanning over what seems like a dozen episodes.

All in all, I would highly advise against wasting time to watch the entire anime. The story progresses ... too slowly, and it's nothing special.

I've decided to rewrite some of my reviews since my other's were more opinions then reviews. There may be spoilers involved so if you haven't finished the show yet, then you've been warned. I said their may be spoilers because I'm basically typing what I say, so don't troll me if my grammar is off.
Anyway's, The Bleach series started out as any cliche Organization Vs Evil Things does ( Such as in D Grey Man, Soul Eater, Trinity Blood, Etc) and doesn't really start to get interesting until around episode 16 or 17. If you enjoy action over other genres and are willing ... to sacrifice having a Tolerable story to get it, then this is the show for you. This rather generic anime has some of the most intense fights in anime, which is perfect for those who watch anime for the fight scenes. I'll use the order of the rating system to review the show and others I might decide to review, So let's begin.
First up for judgement is the Bleach story line. In my experience of the show the story was good up to the end. As I stated, the show didn't really start to get interesting until episode 17 were they travel to soul society. From their the story progressively gets better, Fights get more epic and powers become ridiculous. At the end of the soul society arc your left with some questions, as to be expected, and instead of giving answers they give fillers. The Bleach series was riddled with them, popping up when you just want to find out what happens next. I got sick of fillers and searched for a filler list so I could skip them. Without them the show was a little more enjoyable. Unfortunately, the ending of the main story was rather dreadful and quite frankly left the feeling of chewing on razor blades and using lemon juice as mouth wash afterwards. Sorry if that last phrase was more opinion then review material, but I was quite furious with everything that happened after Ichigo fights Ulquiorra.
Next is art, Which was the best part of the show. The show was full of color and had an interesting array of special effects thrown in. The shows art style changes as it progresses, representing the advancements the studio is making towards more fluent animations. The fight scenes are Bleach's specialty and they certainly deliver. The way it seemed to work is that the show uses a lower budget anime style for the small engagements leading up to Kurosaki and his next boss fight ( Byakuya, Grimjow, Ulquiorra and Aizen). When those fights begin the animations become so flawless the you can't look away and so epic that you forget the color pink, the ability to transform into a cat elf thing and being emo aren't badass. As for Aizen turning into a butterfly? No wonder he wanted the world to end. His fight had spectacular animations even if lacking in movements. The field they were fighting on seemed to be more active then they were.
Not much to say about the sounds, other the the fact that I loved the noise Cero makes when it's charging and then fired. The soundtrack was amazing as well, with my favorite song being Mysterious. The voice actors in the Japanese version were spectacular. I didn't watch the English version other then a couple episodes here and their for a comparison... Never watching dubbed anime again thanks to that ordeal.
Now for character's. Ichigo is a decent enough protagonist. Aizen started out as an amazing antagonist. Other then that, there's way to many characters to review. Would have been nice if the story would kill some good guys off for once, you know, so the show doesn't feel so over populated. As for Aizens decline from amazing badass, well let me explain. When you first see Aizen he appears to be the only captain who gives a crap about the world, only to find that he's the one who triggered the events leading to Ichigo entering Soul Society. He appears to be a genius who is more then just an exceptional spell caster, but is extremely over powered and is prepared for every scenario. After he gets what he wanted and Beats a few captains to express his dominance he takes his glasses off and folds his hair back Clark Kent to Superman style and disappears into the world of the hollows. Unfortunately Kubo's writing ruined Aizen by taking his Foresight overboard. Having him state that all of ichigo's life has just been another one of his experiments. That he was aware of the boy from birth and had pushed Ichigo into all these situations to watch him progress to a stronger state. Then he turns into a butterfly and gets slaughtered by Ichigo in the completely one sided final battle.
The show had a great deal of potential, but was lacking in almost every aspect. The concept of the Zanpakuto was very interesting and made for some nasty fight scenes. But I suppose it just wasn't my cup of tea, though I would rather watch every non fighting episode of this show then any episodes of DragonballZ. Keep in mind the I excluded everything after 310 cause as for as I'm concerned that's where the story should have ended. I give Bleach a 5 out of 10.

Bleach is a good anime, but after 100 episodes it turns into a horrible anime.
For the story i give only 6 because the story gets lamer and lamer. I mean they fight, lose, train, fight, win, fight, lose, train, fight, win,.... it really gets lame.
The art..hm...only 5. its because many new characters look like the older characters. The one guy from Vizard looks like Kariya!
The characters get a nine because they look sooo cool. Hitsugaya with his Hyourinmaru, Byakuya and Senbonzakura, Matsumoto with her tit...Haineko, Ichigo with his Zangetsu,..The main character,Ichigo, has the characteristics of a good leading role.
The Enjoyment...its pretty low because I ... can't enjoy watching that! why? its because of fight, lose, train, fight, win, fight, lose, train, fight, win,...If they would make an arc longer, and add some episodes in which they are searching for the enemy or something like that. and not, ichigo runs! finds enemy. fight. Ichigo loses. Someone trains him. Ichigo fights again. Ichigo wins. a stronger enemy appears. . fight. Ichigo loses. Someone trains him. Ichigo fights again. Ichigo wins,...
so the overall would be Fair 6

Bleach is a story with a lot of potential. It falls short almost every time it has a chance to impress the viewer/reader. Almost every fight goes the same way, a new move/form is either discovered or they get reinforcements, the character depth doesn’t get explored very much throughout the series for well over half of the cast, everyone is often times fairly one dimensional as well, one can also argue the lore feels very strung together at times and serves the plot at complete randomness, arcs drag on a bit too long and overstay their welcome, arcs repeat similar patterns as previous ones, the ... power scaling is very linear and this leaves for not many surprises in battle, every interaction is plot armored heavily leaving it to feel like characters have minimal agency over their own story, while ichigo is cool, he as a character is ironically pretty….hollow ( lmao ), the art is good, but backgrounds are often neglected detail ( not necessarily a negative, maybe a stylistic choice ), too many filler if you’re anime only ( this problem was huge back when bleach was being made, not necessarily going to hold that against it, that was much more of an industry problem, however if you don’t skip them it still greatly hurts the experience besides a few arcs ), no character goal or motivation seems to have much nuance in this story ( with a few exceptions ), I listed most of what I think the negatives of bleach are. I could make the same list of things that I think are F***ING AWESOME, about bleach as well.

Bleach has a soundtrack and it’s absolutely amazing, they have a new style for almost every encounter and it’s beautiful. I find myself listening to this OST while playing video games, working out, or doing anything where I want to feel energy from music, it’s legitimately brilliant. Bleach also has a very cool character design. Most parts of this anime are simply and entirely infused with swagger. There’s no better way to put it, bleach in many aspects is just f***ing cool. Even if something doesn’t make sense, they make it seems like the coolest thing you might ever witness. It definitely helps bleach and its shortcomings to at the very least have it appear bad ass even when on its low points. The characters while fairly simple, are extremely charismatic. It’s easy to be charmed by the cast relatively quickly. Bleach can get very brutal and is themed in a really dark manner. There are many instances that bleach feels lifeless and hopeless and it does this theme well. It makes it all the more tense and much more gut wrenching when seeing the afterlife’s only protectors in a crisis. All the more triumphant when they win as well. The bleakness of bleach can be its strength, but also a weakness. It plays back into everyone feeling relatively one dimensional along with there seemingly being no goals or purpose beyond the threats that arise ( which you know, fair enough that’s their purpose in a sense ).

All in all, I like bleach. It’s a time investment so that’s something to consider, but I personally enjoyed this anime enough for what it is. By no means is it perfect or even near my favorites, but I will always remember it. Many things that commence in this show are absolutely iconic. It will have its ups and downs if you do choose to watch it, that’s something to be fully prepared for. I would say that there are better shonen out there, however bleach has a specific flavor that I’ve never seen replicated. For that and that alone, I appreciate it as an anime very much.


I think how you feel about this series solely depends on a few things. 1. How much or how important are the things I just mentioned to you? 2. What do you value out of bleach or in other words, what did you come in expecting to get out of the series. 3. Were the spectacular parts of bleach enough to have you thoroughly enjoying the manga/anime through to the end? 4. ( this is an important one ) How much do you like shonen as a genre to begin with? I can tell you right now, someone who hates shonen will hate this show. While watching and reading, it began to feel like to me, many shonen traits and popular tropes I’ve seen mimicked throughout the years must’ve came partially from bleach. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it was kind of funny to realize during my time consuming it. Either way, love or hate the series, bleach seems to be a show and manga that is polarizing to an extent. Some people may love it, some may hate it, some may think it’s meh. All have perfectly valid reasons for feeling each way, I truly believe it all depends on your own personal value system with this anime.

Thank you for reading. I tried to be fair, concise and straightforward, nothing too complex to write about. Hopefully I accomplished that and also gave new and old viewers alike a broader perspective of bleach as a whole. I would encourage new readers/viewers to take what I said to heart and really consider if they want to continue with watching it. At least for me, when I have a large time investment in an anime or really anything, I want to feel like it’ll be worth it as I’m sure most others do as well. The “ worth it “ aspect of bleach will spend on how you feel about everything I mentioned. BUT hey…at least if you watch it you can say you’ve seen one of the big three :) . It’s a huge foundation of the industry, so it’s cool to at least try out. Maybe give it a chance and see if it’s for you.

Bleach as an anime is mediocre at best. The concept is great but the execution is extremely lacking. The early episodes have fairly poor animation, and I didn't feel that the anime was even remotely good until around episode 270, but at that point it was still only a /decent/ anime.

There's a huge power-scaling problem with the characters, and the fillers are horrible. Bleach has a higher filler:canon ratio than Naruto does (at the time of writing this review). While one may dislike Naruto fillers (I personally like them due to the following reason), at least Naruto fillers almost always add to character development and ... the story. You can even look at them as canon if you so wish. Bleach filler is fairly low quality with plot holes. Bleach fillers also add zero character development, and to top it off, most of Bleach's full filler arcs do not actually have a place in the Bleach universe (they physically cannot have happened in the past or happen in the future). The arcs also come around at the most inopportune times (i.e. a full 30 episode filler arc unrelated to the story between two consecutive fights in a canon arc).

The anime's story is very linear. I felt as though it was being written day-to-day rather than planned out. "Okay, this person's going to win this fight; let's make it happen."
I honestly didn't get the feeling that any sort of deep thought had gone into the anime until after 310 wherein it's mostly filler from then until 366.

Many anime can provide certain levels of "hype" during a big fight. Whenever Bleach presents such a moment, it's extremely short lived. The "final" fight gave me the most "hype," which only lasted MAYBE two minutes.

I don't find any of the soundtracks to be worth returning to. I occasionally listen to some of the openings and endings, but the overall soundtrack is relatively unimpressive.

I enjoy Bleach's character design and wide range of characters, and it was "entertaining," to say the literal most. I gained very little from this anime besides adding 366 episodes to MyAnimeList. I feel generous to have given it a 6.

As a long-time fan of shounen shows and mangas, I dare to say I was heavily depressed with bleach, for the fact the fights are way too boring and uncreative, and would make other shounen artists like Hirohiko Araki or Togashi Yoshihiro facepalm in dissapointment.

it doesnt help either that the story backgrounds lack feelings or resolve, you wont feel inspiration or excitement in these fights.

its no longer about comparing it to One piece or naruto which are the hot popular stuff now, bleach even pales to classic shounen tales like Rurouni kenshin, Jojo, Yuyu hakusho or Saint seya, or other underlooked mangas like kenichi, soul ... eater or full metal alchemist. there is just no feelings here, just pretentiousness and simplistic mindless fights coated with good artwork and "attractive" characters.

At the begining the theme and story were great; Shinigamis (Simular to Grim reapers. Though they look more like a fusion between a Samurai and Grim reaper), and the Zanpaktou was a great and original idea.
At the begining i loved this anime, especially after episode 15 (or 16 when Ichigo first fights Renji) from there I was hooked on. Bleach continued to surprise me every episode, from the Soul Society arc right through to the build-up to Hueco Mundo. But that all stopped when they actually entered Hueco Mundo. From then on (in my opinion) the story started degrading as every episode started ... to be nothing but fighting. Ichigo has a fight, Renji has a fight blablabla, once they've beaten that person then another person comes along (straight away) and another fight starts. Its gotten so repetative that these days i actually look foward to Bleach fillers.
The art and animation of Bleach is good (if Bleach is going to be fight after fight then they have to make sure they atleast have good animated fights).
Bleaches characters i love. Every character has something unique to them and they don't steriotype (i.e some animes that make all the females useless people that stand around and rely on the men). Plus i love the fact that they don't base the anime around just the main character but instead most of the characters get quite abit of spotlight. Personally i don't like Ichigo but that doesn't matter because i get to see quite alot of my other favorite characters in Bleach. Other animes i would end up hating because i don't like the main character and everything is based on the main character.
I don't get as much enjoyment out of Bleach as i used to but it still entertains me abit.
Overall i would say that Bleach is an anime worth watching but if you decided to stop watching around episode 130 then i wouldn't blame you.